RSSiTunes Songs to Stay at 99 Cents
By the Betanews Staff | Published May 2, 2006, 11:02 AM
Apple confirmed on Monday that it had reached deals with the four major labels -- EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner -- to keep prices for digital downloads at 99 cents per song. The news is a major blow for the record labels, which were attempting to force Apple to allow variable pricing in its iTunes Music Store. Apple controls nearly 80 percent of music sales online, according to recent surveys.
Analysts say some of the reason why the record labels may have backed off the variable pricing plans could be due to the ongoing investigation over price fixing by the New York Attorney General's office. Officials have accused record companies of colluding in order to keep prices artificially high. Neither Apple nor the labels have revealed the terms of the deals.
Well at last someone stands up for us. Hum, when has the other big guys done that for us? Hope they also continue their good work on the software side and don't focus there. I feel they are placing themselves well in the multimedia world in the future.
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|I'll stick with my $0.79/song from Y! Unlimited.
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|Can you burn the songs? I have another website I use (not going to say who, because I don't want anyone else to know) but I pay 0.10 cents. That's right 10 (one zero) cents PER song. It used to be a 0.01 per meg of songs, which averaged just over 4 cents a song, but oh well..
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|I wonder who that could be....?
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|Yes I can burn the songs, I also download and listen to any song I want for free (high quality without burning rights), stream any song I want for free (full-length), and listen to commercial free-internet radio.
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|My favorite service also.
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|Yeah, nobody else knows about AllOfMP3.com and AllTunes.com. As if RIAA hasn't been actively pressuring Russia for months already. Enjoy it while you can, and when the day comes that AllOfMP3.com suddenly disappears, keep a real close eye on your credit card account for their last-ditch desperation move.
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|And of course they still have their rip off international rates.
US itunes = 99 cents/track
UK itunes = 79 pence/track
at current exchange rates 99 cents = 54 pence!
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|So umm.. the obvious solution would be to use the US iTunes .. like duh!
If you know they charge more, switch! Is that so difficult?
And did you ever stop to think that it my have something to do with your Royalty charging more tax? Before you blame Apple, look at your local government, maybe they are charging a Tariff.
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|Are you serious? Do you know that you need a US-based credit card to use the US iTunes store?
And I highly doubt it's this person's local government since Apple tends to do this in non-US countries. (With some computers, for example, they just take the price in US Dollars and, for European pricing, make it the same number of Euros. The Euro is worth more than a dollar, and these computers are sometimes signficantly more expensive.)
That being said, Apple is free to charge whatever price they want, and I'm sure they have people who figure this stuff out and know what's best for the company in a given market.
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|iTunes will not let a UK-based buyer buy from any other country - do you think we wouldn't, if we could?!?
US companies treating the UK as a goldmine is nothing new, rijp, there have been a lot of articles about it here in the last 12 months. Software, music, movies....do a price comparison between amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and you'll see at least the tip of the iceberg.
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|"So umm.. the obvious solution would be to use the US iTunes .. like duh!"
Yes, I did try that, but Apple won't let you, they want to protect their markup.
"If you know they charge more, switch! Is that so difficult?"
Yep, switched to a non-Apple player and a non-Apple store, works wonders.
"And did you ever stop to think that it my have something to do with your Royalty charging more tax? Before you blame Apple, look at your local government, maybe they are charging a Tariff."
No, this is Apple pricing through and through, they do the same all around the world.
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|good, just picked up an ipod, haven't had a chance to use itunes yet
besides, variable pricing doesn't seem right, it'll just make popular songs more expensive
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|..while boosting quality and allowing download in multiple formats (including WAV, FLAC, OGG, etc...), removing DRM, and providing a much smoother interface, either via the iTunes website, or an alternative client interface?
No?
Too bad. I was hoping they'd become useful.
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|C'mon, its like every other big company, they become comfortable..
Why improve something just because the customer wants it! That's just stupid! What do customers know anyway, besides where are they going? There is no competition for iPod and iTunes, is there?
*:)*
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|Heh... Well, nothing marketed as well...at least...not in the US. *grin*
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